


Learning to Be Silent

by Ranowa



Series: The Caged Bird Doesn't Sing [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Automail, Disability, Fake Character Death, Gen, Maes Hughes Lives, Mute Maes Hughes, Muteness, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-15 17:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Because he either lives a half-life or he dies, and a gilded cage is better than a coffin.





	1. What He Sees

**Author's Note:**

> wooooooo and I'm back! Back, to hurt Maes some more! Are y'all excited, because I am! Hehe basically, an AU where he lives and goes into hiding from everyone, including his family. Yes- yet another AU where he lives, because I have a fundamental inability to ever accept canon where he dies. But it's not enough that he live, because I also have to make him suffer an unreasonable amount. Fun, right?
> 
> This'll be a multi-part series (no installments will be that long, all this length or shorter). The main focus will be Winry and Hughes (though Roy'll show up later, if I make it that far), but in this first one, Winry won't be present until the end. I've gotta spend some time making Hughes miserable before Winry can show up to comfort him, obviously ;u; I'll update daily, because super short chapters (but I haven't fully written future installments yet, so those'll take a week or two)

His voice is gone, they tell him.

It is the least of things that he has lost, but yet, somehow, also one of the most.

He looks at himself in the mirror, the first time in what they tell him is three weeks. He doesn’t remember most of it. At first, injured too severely to even dream, and then, drugged too heavily for his fever dreams and blurred minutes spent awake to have formed coherent memory.This is the first time the drugs have been taken down enough for him to truly wake, as well as to sit up- propped heavily against pillows and head still spinning with dizzy spells or not. He looks in the mirror, and they tell him, pointing to the bandages around his throat, that his voice is gone- but this is not what he sees.

His hair is longer than it ought to be. It simply is not right. He’s been in the military ten years, now, and he knows the regulations well, even though he dances just on the side of breaking them with constant scruff at an unshaven jawline. It’s against regulation. It’s too long. There’s not really regulation for proper discipline procedures if an officer of his rank reports for duty like this; officers of his rank don’t reach it by being unable to comply with even the dress code. But, it’s not right. The back of his neck and his face itches with it. He can’t stand it, and he wants to cut it.

He can’t.

It’s also bleached blond. That’s not familiar, either, but for some reason, it’s the flagrant defiance for military code that bothers him so much more than the strange and wrong color.

His eyes, too. Unfamiliar eyes blink back at him from the polished reflection, eyes unshielded by glasses. Eyes that are bright blue. Eyes that he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t like them, either, but the hair still bothers him more.

But then, there’s the injuries, and the injuries, of course, must make him feel worse than an uncomfortable haircut. They don’t- perhaps it’s the mind-numbing drugs- but they don’t. His right shoulder is empty, and he stares there first, again too drugged and shocked to feel sickened by it. His right arm is cut off. There’s nothing left of it but a stump of bandages. It’s gone.

No matter how times he thinks he, no matter how many times he sees it, he doesn’t quite believe it.

But it’s the truth: his arm is gone.

His nurse reminds him of the woman who took it. Long, dark curls and long, dark lashes. When she smiles at him, his heart races, and more than once he’d found his skin crawling and his breaths compressed until he could hardly even breathe but for the panic of it. She’d cut his arm, and she’d known what she was doing, because it had bled and bled and bled until it had bled for too long and it had been too late when he’d been found, because the limb had been dead. He wonders if it should hurt more. Perhaps it’ll come later.

Slowly, achingly, he touches at it with his left hand. There’s no wedding ring on that hand.

And somehow, it’s the lack of a ring that jars him more than the lack of an arm.

And then there’s his throat, and his stare is drawn, unbidden, to that ugly, bloody, inhuman disaster. He touches at it with his left hand, always his left hand now, bare left hand, fingers stopping just short of the mess of bandages hiding the mess of scarring. There are ones just like it on his chest, he knows, but this one somehow feels far more final. That scar will always be hidden under clothes. That scar will always have an easy explanation. That scar, he can someday pretend, does not exist.

This scar has none of those things.

This scar, though he’s not even seen it yet, he knows, will mar him in an ugly, disastrous wound of weakness for the rest of his life.

That’s the one that took his voice, the doctors tell him. A cigarette lighter taken to his throat, burning shut a bullet wound in a stunt that he does not remember, but that he wants to hit Roy for anyway, because it simply _must_ have been where the foolhardy idea came from- and did he mention that it _hurts_ and is, by far, one of the stupidest things he has ever done in his life?

It hurts. He can’t talk. He can’t even whisper. Oh, it _hurts._

The doctors tell him it's permanent.

The scarring, of course- but his voice, too.

He burned his bleeding vocal chords shut. And with it, he’s taken away his voice away for good.

Like his arm, no matter how many times he tries to tell it to himself, he doesn’t really believe it yet. He looks in this mirror, sees this stranger looking back, and it’s that stranger who all of this has happened to.

He really doesn’t believe, yet, that it’s happened to him.

It’s all together a messy solution, that cigarette lighter against a bullet wound; there was a whole lot of blood, and now all this ugly scarring, and the burns he gave to his vocal chords sealing his words away. Too messy, for his tastes. It would’ve been so much cleaner the other way, and-

And, yes, looking at this crippled, lonely stranger in the mirror, and just slowly starting to taste the bittersweet misery of the truth, he wishes he’d done it the other way.

Just bled our properly on the street, and died right there, and been done with it.

Because he looks at this stranger, and he looks at the unfamiliar, lonely landscape his life has shattered into, and he doesn’t want it.


	2. What He Hears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos/comments!!!

Sometimes, Maes will get up in the middle of the night, sit under the window, and listen.

He doesn’t sleep well, anymore. And that’s for any number of reasons, most ones he doesn't care to think about. The drugs, sometimes; the constant and heavy drugs he's on, they’ve wrecked his sleep cycles, and sometimes he's just left up in the middle of the night, wide awake for no reason at all. The pain is another factor. No matter how much morphine they give him, it’s not enough; his arm, his throat, his everything- it’s unbelievable how much his arm _hurts_ even though it’s just not there anymore. The doctors tell him it’s phantom pain, and he thinks of Ed, and is sickened and horrified and nauseated to realize just how excruciating it is. The nurses tell him it's phantom pain, which means there's nothing anyone can do- the drugs won't help, because it's all in his head. He thinks of Ed again, equal parts horrified and amazed at what that kid has gone through and survived. It's bad enough to wake him up from a deep sleep no matter how many drugs he's one and leave him trembling on the edge of the bed and sweating, in too much pain to go back to sleep. It's _unbelievable_ how much something that isn’t even there anymore can _hurt._

Sometimes it’s not the pain. Sometimes it’s not the drugs.

Sometimes, it’s a drugged, pained dream of being shot by his wife, and he wakes up with his heart pounding so fast he can barely breathe.

He doesn’t wake up screaming, because he can’t. But sometimes, gasping from a ravaged throat, he realizes the screaming he hears is in his own head.

Sometimes, it is none of those things, but simply that he feels sick to his stomach when he realizes the hospital bed is too cold and lonely when he’s the only one in it, and after so many years of Gracia, he thinks he might just have forgotten how to sleep alone.

No matter the reason, Maes doesn’t sleep well anymore.

And on the almost nightly occasion that he finds himself awake now, silent and dreadfully alone in a cold, clinical hospital room, he’ll get up, walk over to sit under the window, and listen.

It’s almost too much to actually look out there. He’s a city boy, born and raised, but Rush Valley isn’t like Central. It’s not like East City. It is fundamentally different, as different as a foreign country, this ramshackle sprawling of misfits and struggling amputees out in the hot desert sun, and he tries not to look out the window at the unfamiliar landscape. Not unless he wants to add the pang of homesickness to the myriad of pains in him every waking moment.

But he can listen. He can do that much.

The sounds of the hospital late at night are easy to tune out, easy because they, at least, are recognizable and familiar. A hospital is a hospital, whether its in Central or out here in Rush Valley. The familiar sounds are comforting, and help make the unfamiliar outside that he’s trying to acclimate himself to bearable. He brings his notepad with him, as well, though he’s always careful not to write names. He doesn't write the names, but he does scrawl out letters- letters that will never be sent, letters that’ll burn before the next morning. Normally to Gracia. Sometimes, on the days the pain’s the worst and he can barely breathe past gritted teeth, to Elicia.

When he can hear it raining outside, somehow, they always end up written to Roy.

These, he burns with a particular vehemence, and he doesn’t watch them scatter when he throws the ashes out the window.

The night nurse figure out his sleepless, late-night habits pretty quickly. Which he's not surprised by, because he's not trying particularly hard to hide it. As soon as he was strong enough to stagger over to the window, he'd started, and he'd done it almost every night since, just because it’s easier than the alternative. The woman tells him off for it at first, trying to make him go back to bed- but Maes can’t sleep anymore, and soon she realizes it does more harm than good, and she stops. Soon, whenever she sees him sitting there cross-legged under the glass, eyes closed and breaths unsteady, she understands. She understand, and she’ll give him a blanket, and an extra pen or two, and one sad smile before she leaves him alone.

He knows she’s realized there is more to him and his injuries than the uninteresting story of a car accident Maria Ross and Alex Louis had concocted. She’d realized a long time ago, he thinks. But she doesn’t ask, and for that, he is grateful.

It’s one of the first times that he realizes that being mute isn’t all that bad.

There are too many things that he can’t say, too many lies he’d have to tell, too many falsehoods he’d have to spin on the spot. And then, there are all these new feelings, of missing his family and Roy, of guilt of what he’s surely putting them through, of guilt that he feels like this at all, because surely it’s wrong to suffer like this when he’s forcing his family to go through so much _worse_. Of loneliness, of disability and uselessness, the constant pain and the rough scarring on his throat and that he doesn’t even _recognize_ himself, anymore and- and things that he just doesn’t have the words for-

It’s easier, being mute, because it gives him an excuse not to answer, and others, like his night-nurse, who see that he’s slowly falling apart, to have the excuse not to ask.

Late one night, unannounced, Alex Louis “visits”.

Alex Louis and Maria are the only two who know his real fate, and they are the only two familiar faces he’s ever seen here- his own included. For this ruse, it’s paramount that they not attract attention, so they do not come often. Maria, who serves as liaison with their Rush Valley office, has more excuse to be here; he’s seen her three times since he’s woken up, every time late at night. Alex Louis, who has no such excuse, and who is busy in Central trying to run the homunculi investigation in his place, he has received only heavily coded letters from; he has never seen him before tonight.

But now, here he is, standing silently in the doorway just like this. Maria had appeared like a ghost every time; Alex Louis, he’d heard coming from the down the hallway. He could’ve stood up from beneath the window. Perhaps, he should have. But he didn’t, and now he just sits there silently because he has no choice, and stares unabashedly at the hulking, blurry form in the doorway. His contacts are out for the night, so he can’t really _see_ him- but there is no one else who that could be.

He smiles, just because he doesn’t know how not to. But he’s not happy, and he thinks it shows in his eyes, because Alex doesn’t smile back.

There’s no preamble. Alex crosses the room, looking at him without expression, and sits on the edge of the vacated hospital bed, making it creak and groan. Peculiarly, while Maria has always been soft and accommodating, it seems Alex will be blunt and to the point. Again, he’s thankful.

He doesn’t really have the will to manage the facade he has to with Maria, at the moment.

When Alex speaks, his words, just like his manner, are blunt.

“I’m here to transfer some money to a bank account we’re setting up for you. So that when you’re released, you can get settled much easier.” He sets an envelope down, presumably with all the information in it that he needs in it, then pauses, watching Maes, sitting there under the window, shivering in the low light and thin under the blanket he clutches, with unfathomable eyes. “As you know, sir, there’s more where that comes from. ...There's also plenty of room to move in.”

That, cryptically, is all he says.

As tired and shaken as Maes is, it takes him longer than it should, to hear the underhanded, pitying offer for what it is.

Alex is offering him the chance to hide in his estate. Alex is offering him the chance- the last chance he might ever have- to leave this place where he spends every night shaking underneath a window, go back to Central, shed this false appearance, and live just ten miles away from his wife and daughter.

Alex is telling him that if he really does not want to do this, if he _really_ does not want to stay here in Rush Valley, then he does not have to. He does not have to do this.

Maes looks miserably up to the pale moonlight wavering in above him.

He’d be living right next to Gracia and Elicia, yes.

And he’d never be able to see them.

Never be able to see anyone, really.

Maes catches an image of himself wasting away in Armstrong’s enormous basement, never seeing sunlight and surviving off the stories of his family passed along like scraps of food tossed to a rat. He imagines it going from weeks into _years,_ just hiding down there until he died for real, forgotten about like an old relic.

He imagines what it would be like to know Elicia was growing up just around the block from him, and still, never being able to see her.

That night, after Alex leaves, Maes burns the letter with the same lighter he’d used to burn his throat shut, and scatters the ashes along with those of the apologies he’d spent the rest of the night writing to his wife and daughter.

art by the lovely [maeshughesofficial](https://maeshughesofficial.tumblr.com/)


	3. What He Smells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me! Look at what I'm doing to FMA's happy dad!!! Literally no one asked for me to hurt him like this but I am feeling very proud of myself at the most ;u; thanks for all the kudos/comments!

When he smells Gracia’s perfume, he promptly locks himself in a storage closet, and spends the next two hours trying not to throw up.

While he’s sitting there on the dark, dirty floor, heart busy trying to beat straight out of his chest and crushed with a pain so tight he can’t breathe, he tells himself a lot of things.

It’s because the woman who’d worn the perfume is his the nurse, the one who looks like Lust. The one who took his arm.

It’s because he’s about the furthest thing from healthy that a man can get, and that’s all. He’s not sitting here choking on air, stomach flipped, mind blinded by panic because of the perfume at all. It’s actually because he’s still ill, or the drugs, or lack of sleep, or constant pain, or some combination of that that’s tipped him over the edge- it’s not because of the perfume. That’s just silly, he tells himself, and no one could ever prove any differently, because every single choked, desperate cry that's torn from his throat comes out silent.

It’s because he misses Gracia.

Whatever the reason, it’s most certainly _not_ because Envy had looked like Gracia when he’d shot him, and he somehow remembers that smell mingling with the one of burning flesh as he sears his own throat shut.

 _That_ is _not_ the reason.

That’d be just silly, after all.

Maes spends two hours in that dark space, coughing on dust and fighting for space with old crates and a discarded broom, and knows that the tight fist that’d squeezed around his throat the moment the scent had hit him has nothing to do with Envy, and everything to do with everything else, because he will _not_ let that homunculus make him afraid of his own wife.

Not that it matters, because Envy’s already taken everything else from him- but there’s a line that he won’t let himself cross, and that’s it.

He realizes, fifteen minutes or so of dizzy wheezing later, that this is probably a panic attack.

As usual, along with most messed up things in his life, this is only so because of Roy.

Roy had used to get panic attacks, though a very long time ago. Back when Ishval had not been a festering, poisoned wound but a fresh and bleeding one, and though Roy had tried to hide it, he was also a terrible actor and an even worse liar, and Maes could only walk in on his friend on the cusp of a breakdown so many times before he'd known what was going on. He recognizes it as a panic attack because he’d had to try and talk Roy out of his one too many times to ever forget the experience... something that had been almost as terrifying for him as it’d been for Roy. More than once, Roy had sworn he was dying- and more than once, his best friend down on his knees, the color of chalk, and suffocating, Maes had believed him.

He also wants to go back and punch past-him in the face, now that he can acutely actually feel how ineffectively, insultingly _pathetic_ ever single word he’d ever said to Roy back then actually was.

Hell, he’s a little surprised _Roy_ never punched him.

He tries not to think about it.

By the time the panic fades enough for him to even consider getting to his feet, it’s been over an hour, and he's so exhausted and sick he feels like he's dying.

By the time he actually does stand up, hauling himself back on trembling, numb legs to clutch the door like a lifeline and stagger outside on it like a terrified shadow, each wheeze ringing in his ears, it’s been two. He still doesn't feel any better at all.

He still can’t breathe or stop shaking. He still feels like he’s about to throw up. He still feels shaken and pathetic and terrified and desperately just wants nothing more than for Gracia or Roy to be there with him and make him not feel so _alone_ just for a single minute.

But he stands up anyway because, despite all his best efforts, the panic racing through his bloodstream and tightening his stomach into excruciating knots and strangling his lungs had bettered him, and he’d thrown up in the corner after all. It’s because he’d thrown up mostly blood, and his throat hurts so damn much he can barely stand it anymore. It’s because he feels sick, and dehydrated, and exhausted, and in pain, and as much as he just wants- _needs-_  to hide until morning from the rest of the world in here where he feels like a pathetic child but at least no one else _knows,_ he’s also not a stubborn idiot like Roy, so some part of him still realizes he really needs to get someone to stitch his throat back together before he passes out here and dies after all.

It’s mostly because he knows the woman who looks like Lust, but worst of all, smells like Gracia, has now gone home, so it’s safe.

Blood’s streaked down his chin as he stumbles to his feet, dragging himself forwards on numb legs and hanging off the door for support when he dares to step into the rest of the world again. The only reason he makes it at all is that his room is not ten feet away, and the hall’s still deserted. By the way his heart’s still pounding, he feels like if anyone had been in the hall when he’d opened that door, he’d have just slammed it back shut and gone back to hiding. It feels like he’s been wrung out like a used dish-rag and left out to dry. It feels like the woman who looks like Lust but smells like Gracia had crushed him into a thousand tiny pieces and he’s still slowly splintering apart, because he _still_ can’t stop shaking, still feels so sick he’s going to pass out, still can not _breathe._

He ignores the blood still slowly dribbling down his chin, drags himself back to his room, and doesn’t let himself think about any of it.

He crawls back into the cold, lonely bed, once again takes a lesson from Roy, and rather than spend the next ten hours trying to calm down, just grabs at Alex’s latest message, and buries himself in decoding.

This, too, had been Roy’s pattern. Grabbing the nearest stack of inconsequential paperwork the moment his hands were steady enough to do it to distract himself with and just bulldozing through it no matter how much Maes had begged him to stop and just rest. But now- god, now, _finally,_ he understands. He understands everything, and he wants to punch past-him in the face all over again, and if Roy had been here he would’ve thrown apologies at him until he was blue in the face- but Roy’s not here, and he still can’t speak even if he had been, so the fact that he feels guilty enough to throw up again just doesn’t matter. But it helps. The work more than helps; it’s a _lifesaver_. It’s a distraction. It calms him down. It gives him something solid to cling to, and something to think about instead of every lingering, silent scream lurking in every corner of his head. It makes him forget about Envy, and Gracia, and the damn perfume, and just bogs his mind down until he can finally trust himself not to need it anymore.

So he works over Alex’s message with a badly trembling hand, swallowing blood for as long as he has to, and just turns the rest of himself off.

When he can finally face the idea of letting himself be poked and prodded without jumping out of his skin, he lets the night-nurse take care of the blood, ignores her pitying looks and quiet questions with all his might, and then throws himself back down to the lumpy pillow and shuts out the world.

Once again, he remembers Roy.

Even though he’s starting not to want to, because remembering his best friend, who’s _not here,_ who thinks he is _dead,_ is starting to make him as ill as remembering Gracia does.

But he thinks about it anyway; how easily Roy had slept after those episodes, the exhausted, distraught light in his eyes fading into a fatigued, _relieved_ one when he'd finally calmed down enough to curl around the nearest soft surface and just pass out. It had been an unsettling rarity in those dark months, back when Roy had tended to sleep no more than an hour or two a night at most and it had gotten so bad Maes had started driving him around, just so he wouldn’t have to worry about him falling asleep at the wheel. But after those rare episodes, at least, he’d pass out cold like the dead and not so much as move for a good ten hours- and even then, only if presented with coffee and a chucked pillow to his head.

But there’s no one here to give Maes coffee or throw pillows at his head, which doesn’t matter, because he refuses to let himself think about it.

It’s probably the only upside there is to all of this, but for the first time in weeks, he’s able to sleep through the night. He takes it for face value, and chooses only to try and enjoy the one night of rest he’s going to get, and not that it was at least in equal parts that he can't stand to think of Gracia, because Gracia thinks he is dead- and that some part of him is so terrified by his wife he’d nearly died trying to escape it. 

After all, just as Roy’s nothing if not a pessimist, he’s nothing if not an optimist.

It's the first time being reminded of Graica nearly breaks him. It wouldn’t be the last.


	4. What He Tastes

When Maria Ross comes to visit, properly clandestine and secret in the middle of the night, she sneaks in coffee.

It’s been weeks since he’s tasted anything but the dull buzz of sedatives and the cold slush of hospital smoothies. When he smells the rich, hot tang of coffee as she hands it to him, the first break in the dull medicinal monotony that’s swallowed him up, he’s so ecstatic he can almost kiss her.

Then he tastes it, realizes it’s decaf, and slumps back against the hard pillows.

It takes effort for him to give her a betrayed look, the sort of thing he feels like he’s supposed to do but his heart simply is not in it. Maria still smiles, smiles like she knows it’s not sincere, because he doesn’t have it in him, but it’s a reward for trying.

That just makes him feel worse.

“No caffeine for you yet, sir,” she tells him quietly, folding her hands behind her back. “Not while you’re on painkillers.”

He sighs, carefully, softly, making sure not to aggravate his wounded throat, and takes another sip anyway. He wants to tell her to quit snooping into his medical file, but it doesn’t matter. Not really. That’s not proper gratitude to show for the woman who’s saved his life, so he’ll be good, and stay silent. He’ll pretend. Although it hardly matters. He’s not Maria’s biggest fan at the moment, which she knows, and the coffee feels more like a peace offering than anything else.

She’d taken his wedding ring.

He understands- he hates it, but he understands- why he can’t wear it anymore. Just like everything else, it’s too risky. Any single part of him that matches with Maes Hughes can not remain; even clinging onto it as a keepsake, locked away in his pocket, is too dangerous. The ring was supposed to be buried six feet under back in Central, and so Maes can’t risk having it here.

He doesn’t really care about all that, at the moment.

All he cares is that she’d taken his wedding ring, not even considering trying to devise some scheme to let him keep it, or letting him make his case- god, she hadn't even waited until he was awake to watch it go or tell him she was taking it. He'd just woken up, and it was gone.

And some part of him hates her for it.

He drinks the decaf coffee anyway.

Maes thinks, staring down at the cup warming his hand, that he can’t help but wish for something else. Bringing coffee to the hospitalized comrade is just so- _military._ Roy would make fun of him and proceed to eat quiche right in front of his face. Gracia would bring him something he could actually enjoy; her homemade tea, or maybe-

He carefully stops that thought in its tracks before it can go on too far.

_(It hardly matters, his heart’s already broken, but he’s already learned thinking too much on how things would be different hurts more than not, so he’ll pretend, he’s always pretending)_

Ross’ stern smile fades into a softer examination as he stares into the coffee, one that makes him shift self-consciously in the cold hospital bed and start inspecting his fingernails instead. Look at that. His fingernails look the same. That's one similarity. Wow. Win for him. Maes breathes in deeply, gratefully inhaling the scent of _life_ outside the sterile antiseptic of medicine, and he keeps his gaze off her, because he doesn’t want to see the look in her eyes as she evaluates him.

The burn the coffee instills in his throat is enough to make him keep drinking it.

 ****“You don’t look very well,” she finally says to him, stiff and blunt.

He frowns. And, how is he meant to answer that? He finds himself opening his mouth on reflex anyway, but he’s his heart’s at least stopped falling with a pang whenever nothing comes out; he’s used to the silence, now. The wordless, sardonic smile he gives her back, meeting her eyes at last, makes her almost flinch, but it also the first time a person has looked at him and seen _Maes Hughes_ in weeks, so he doesn’t have it in him to be polite. _Hospitals tend to do that,_ he writes, sloppy and ugly, and he’s smiling darkly again as he hands the paper to her.

 

Maria sighs heavily as she reads it, her tired eyes darkening. Something unreadable crosses her face, something rather disappointed in him, he thinks, as she hands the notepad back and returns her gaze to his, inscrutable. She observes him quietly again. “You don’t have automail yet,” she goes on conversationally, like it’s just a casual observation, and glances towards where the sleeve of the hospital shirt hangs limply next to him rather than moving towards the real reason she has come. “The hospital hasn’t set you up?”

 ****Maes scowls, resisting the urge to tell her to get on with it. _Automail’s not free,_ is all he writes, though really means so much more. It’s somewhat true, he supposes. Given that he has no money or steady income as of yet, he can’t afford a mechanic at the moment. When the doctors had finally cleared him for it, he’d just accepted their number for a recommended mechanic without looking at it, telling himself he can’t afford it yet, so just don't think about it.

He knows that’s really not why.

He knows it’s because he still can’t believe it yet.

He knows it’s because it still doesn’t feel real, and he can’t pick up the phone and call for someone to give him a metal arm when he still looks in the mirror and thinks this is all still just one long nightmare and he’s not waking up.

He can’t call for a mechanic when he still can’t accept that this is real.

He tries not to think about it much. He tries not to think about most things.

It rarely works.

Her frown deepens at the lie on the paper, the lie; Maes lies to them all, now. “That’s what Armstrong decided. That’s why I have this for you.” Only now does she give him the envelope she had walked in with, surely her real reason, sliding it across the sheets with her thumb and forefinger, no trace of a smile gracing her features any longer. “Enough money to get you an arm from any decent mechanic that you want, Lieute-... Eric.”

Maes nearly flinched at how his new name sounded, coming off her lips. Slowly, he nods in acceptance, glaring down at the surely unholy sum of money being pushed at him. He knows he doesn’t want it; he doesn’t know why. But he does not want it there, and he does not like it. But after a moment, he manages to rearrange his features into something closer to a smile, again, because he has no choice, and takes it, stuffing it out of sight to where to the false drawer in the nightstand where he hides everything he needs to keep hidden. Out of sight, out of mind is what he’s hoping for, and he reaches his pen again, aiming to write out a thank you and then have that be the last he thinks of it ever again.

“Of course,” Maria goes on quietly, the very moment the pen touches paper, “next time I come, you’ll have another excuse for me, won’t you?”

Maes stills silently.

Ross is waiting when he looks up to meet his eyes, but he only manages to hold her gaze until he hunts out the pity in it, hidden and quiet but present nonetheless. “This city is made up of mechanics and amputees, sir. I sincerely doubt you are the first in need of automail with no money here- and you’re a resourceful man. You very easily could’ve worked out an arrangement with a mechanic- and I think we both know why you haven’t.” She hesitates for a moment, giving him a long, hard look.

That was all she needed to do, give him that look. It made something inside him go cold and he reverted his gaze back down to the sheets, frowning at the stray threads and tracing an aimless pattern against it, unable to face the judgement and reproach he knows he’d find if he looked up.

“Moving on, Eric,” she says at last, voice quiet, sympathetic- allowing the previous line of questioning to drop simply out of pity for him.

He sighs, wondering when he had become such a pathetic figure his own subordinates would feel the need to treat him like this.

“On the subject of one feeling _envious,”_ she says to him, stressing the word just enough for him to hear the message underneath and he perks up more than the rich coffee ever could’ve made him, “I’ve managed to now understand it a little bit more myself. And I’ve heard many others mentioning they’ve seen quite a _lustful_ figure wondering about, up in Central. Things are getting heated.”

Maes relaxes, shifting into his old skin as if he had never even left it. This he can do. This role, he knows, and it is the closest like himself he has felt in weeks as he inhales the rich, familiar scent of the coffee, then picks up his pen again. _I see. You’d do best to be wary of such envy, though,_ he writes, then drops the pen to trail the scar on his throat meaningfully, giving her a hard look. _It can sneak up on you so easily, disguising its true form. You might not even realize what’s happening to you until it’s too late._ He touches the scar again.

They go on like that for several minutes, murmuring and writing in coded double talk about the homunculi and setting up plans for how to go from here. While Ross and Armstrong were going to attempt to continue his investigation covertly, Maes is already planning on using this new life out here to do the same. Ross and Armstrong would need to be careful, lest the very military they were investigating turned on them- just as what had happened to him.

Maes, however, won’t be bound by such dangers.

After all, he has devastatingly little left to lose.

At last, they’ve exchanged all they truly can and are left in a quiet silence for several more moments, Maes stirring his coffee in disinterest and frowning at it. When the lieutenant clears her throat again, he expects talk of more homunculi and is ready for it with a grim smile.

What he gets instead, though, is something that made his heart shrivel up and plummet down to his feet in a cold, neglected lump.

“You remember that sad story I told you, Eric, about how my boss died?” She pauses, voice deliberately carefree and light for the benefit of any potential eavesdroppers, even at this time of night- but her eyes are abruptly grave. “Well, I do have a small bit of good news. You see, he was promoted, for being KIA. General, now. It seems a little like a meaningless gesture, you know, just a title on a gravestone... but, it means his family gets more in their benefit checks.” She pauses meaningfully again. “His wife and daughter will be fine. ...That’s good, isn’t it?”

His heart throbs painfully, stuttering in his chest, and he finds himself unable to even nod through the lump in his throat.

It takes him several moments to manage to lift his shaking hand again, reaching for his pen. It hurts. Everything _hurts._ He can’t bear to look her in the eye again, and suddenly finds himself gasping for the familiar scent because it’s the only thing he has that reminds him of home. His hand is shaking so much he can barely write, but he pretends it’s just his injuries, he always does, and she does, too, even now that his lip is trembling and he’s having to squint to keep his eyes dry.

 _How are they doing, them? That money’s good, yes,_  and god that hurts to write, because money,  _money?!_ Extra money for his family like that feels like a slap in the face, he knows it's not helping at all, _but losing her father must’ve been very difficult for that little girl?_

Writing that last part, of course, hurts even more.

Ross hesitates.

His heart falls just a little bit further, and inside it aches so much that he almost wants to just curl up into a ball and bury himself under the bed.

“They’re managing,” she murmurs at last, and Maes know the reason she has neglected to give specifics is because there is nothing kind for her to tell him.

It feels like he’s shattering into a thousand tiny, irreparable pieces, and it’s all he could do not to put his head down in his hand and sob.

_I’m so sorry, Elicia... Daddy is so, so sorry..._

Ross clears her throat roughly, her own misty eyes lowering to break his gaze as she draws back, quiet and miserable. “To make matters worse, his horse is the most miserable anyone’s ever seen him,” she goes on, frowning weakly. “At least, that’s what a little birdie told me. Won’t even come out of the stable except to work. People are worried about him. He’s taking everything rather... badly.”

Again, something inside him aches.

Little birdie? Hawkeye.

His _horse?_

Mustang.

The coffee cup crinkles in his hand, fingernails digging into the cheap styrofoam, and it hurts so much to swallow he nearly chokes on it.

 _Poor thing,_ he writes finally, gritting his teeth. Then: _what’s your point?_

Because this, unlike what she’d told him about his family, could not in any way be construed as something to cheer him up.

His former subordinate shifts a little, seemingly uncomfortable. “Well... Armstrong and I were talking about it, and... and...” She lifts her eyes back up to him for a moment, wide and beseeching; hopeful. “Well, would it do much harm, just to talk to him about this- you? Your horse, that is? You were always great with animals, Eric.” She manages a weak, hopeful little smile. “Maybe, if we just told him a little about you, then things would get better for him...”

Ah.

So _that_ is why she has come.

Very calmly, Maes shuts his eyes, and breathes.

He doesn’t like the familiar smell of the coffee anymore, because it only reminds him all the more what he’s missing.

He blindly slips a few bills out of the collection Armstrong has given him, eyes still shut, and lays them carefully down on top of the coffee cup, without a trace of a smile. He hands it back to her, and when he knows he can pull it off, he opens his eyes, gives her the coldest look he can, and shakes his head.

It’s very clearly an order to take what she’d come with, and leave.

But, as subordinates are want to do, she does not follow it.

“Sir,” she starts, voice weak, shoulders slumping. She winces again at the look on his face, eyes miserable. “Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you... please,“ she tries to push the cup and money back to him, “please, let’s just take a moment-“

He drops the coffee and money down with a resounding sort of cold, empty clatter, then holds his one hand up, demanding silence. He glares until she realizes he wants her to wait, and then, he wordlessly takes his pen back down to the paper, and writes his final message.

_I know what your intention was. You feel bad, knowing you’re keeping this from Roy, and what it’s doing to him. Seeing what it’s doing to him everyday. You came to me, asking this, knowing full well that of all people, him and my family are the ones who can never know. You asked me anyway, knowing what I’d have to say. You want to hand the responsibility of this off on to me, so you don’t have to feel guilty._

It takes him a pathetic amount of time to write, the pen slipping and sliding shakily across the page, but he writes it, and he tears it off, and he pushes it at her without even looking.He keeps on writing then, keeps on writing even though it’s hard and his hand hurts and his heart is shattering in his chest and he keeps on writing, because he doesn’t have a choice.

 

 _You want me to give the order directly- take all the blame for what they’re going through? Fine_. He leans smoothly back as she reaches for him, leaving her grasping at an empty sleeve. _Don’t tell Roy. Don’t tell my family, either. I don’t care how miserable they are. You’re forbidden from telling them the truth. And when they’re furious at you for this later, it’s all right, Ross._ He shrugs one shoulder as he writes, splintering more and more with each agonized, damming word that he forces out onto the paper. _You can tell them I made you do it. I made you put my family and best friend through hell. Is that all right, Lieutenant? Have I appeased your guilty conscience?_

Some part of him knows it is heartlessly cruel, to be saying such things to her, but even that tiny sliver still can’t feel sorry at the miserable guilt that contorts her face as she reads the message. How dare she come here like this? How dare she bring him down even lower, just when he’d already sworn to have hit rock bottom? How _dare_ she tell him how much the people he loved were hurting just so he’d have to say outright _I don’t care- let them hurt._

To say those words, to be that executioner... it shatters him.

How _dare she?_

“Sir...” she whispers again, staring at him almost like he had slapped her.

Maes withdraws fully from her, looking coldly away towards the door in what is an undeniable order to leave. He doesn’t look at her again, not when she starts shaking, not when she slumps and stares down to her lap as the most guiltstricken, miserable figure in the world- not even when she finally crumples in defeat.

He does nothing, until she finally stands.

Then, he gives her one final message.

 _Next time you have a question like that,_ he writes in cold, jagged letters, scratching them into the pad so far the ink bleeds, _keep it to yourself._

When Maria leaves, she takes the coffee and the smell of home with her.

He’s relieved, because he doesn’t want to think about them any longer.


	5. What He Touches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okedoke, here's the deal: I've spliced this chapter up. Originally, it went on much longer, and this fic ended with Winry realizing who Maes is and other things. But that chapter ended up twice as long as the others and didn't do well at all at keeping the scope small; it just felt totally out of place with all the rest of the fic and was jarring because of it. 
> 
> So, here's what I'm going to do: I've cut this chapter up (it's still the Winry chapter, just shorter) so it fits in better into what I'm posting today. The rest of the original version, where Winry learns the truth about everything, will be the first chapter of the next installment. (There'll be a pink stuffed bear and some hugs. Look forward to it ;u;) That'll be very similar to this one (five chapters around the senses, probably rather short, etc) although it'll be Hughes out in Rush Valley instead of lurking around a hospital and with Winry constantly around as well. I don't know when that installment'll be posted; I'm going to at least wait until I have a skeleton written to post it, but it hopefully should not be too long.
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for the kudos and comments, and hopefully I'll see you all next time!!! <3

He requests the recommended automail mechanic with Armstrong’s money to back him up the next morning.

Mostly to keep Maria from having another reason to visit in the middle of the night, because at the moment, he has no interest in seeing her.

The mechanic, a Mr. Garfiel, he’s told, comes three days later. Garfiel comes highly recommended, apparently; the moment the doctor finds out money is no object he’s being handed his phone number, and all but given no choice in who is going to outfit him with the new limb that’s meant to be his companion for the rest of his life. Of course, coming highly recommended also comes at a cost; he has to wait three days for the man to make his weekly trip to the hospital, and even then is told he’ll have to wait alongside a dozen other patients waiting to be seen- but sure. By the end of the day, his order will be placed, his empty shoulder socket will be measured, and the mechanic will be off making him a brand new metal limb in no time.

Joy. He can’t wait.

Maes finds himself sent off to another ward of the hospital, to wait with the other patients who need automail or automail assistance. It’s a nervewracking experience in and of itself, walking across the hospital to what almost feels like his execution, so much so that he barely manages to work up the courage to go in at all. He takes another one of Alex’s messages to work on just to help himself calm down, planning to distract himself with it as much as he can today just so he doesn’t have to thing about the cold steel that, in just a week or two’s time, is going to be drilled into his side and weighing him down for the rest of his life.

 

When he opens the door to find himself faced with a crowd of grinning, expectant amputees, each one greeting him with a metal hand or a steel arm or a shiny leg, he almost wants to turn around and just go home.

 _Home,_ home. Not the hospital room.

But he doesn’t, because he thinks of his family and knows if he ever wants to see them again, this is the only way, and so instead he swallows his pride, and he swallows his fear, and forces himself inside the room one step at a time.

 _Eric Wilson,_ he hands over the the waiting nurse, legs slowly turning to jelly and stomach to lead. _I’m here for an appointment._ He can’t stop himself from touching his shoulder, tracing the scars of his stump through his sleeve.

And just like that, all the other patients set upon him like vultures to roadkill.

He’s manhandled further into the waiting room, the men forcing him inside and wrenching his flimsy hospital shirt to the side to expose the amputation site, prodding at the barely healed wounds and plying him with so many questions his head spins. “Finally ready to join the best of the best?” one man cried, slinging an arm around his shoulders like they were brothers. “You’ll never regret it! Automail’ll make your life _awesome_ again!”

“How’d you lose it?” another one prods, crowding up so close Maes could smell the cigarettes on his breath. “Looks like a doctor cut yours off for ya! Lucky you; it’s easier that way, don’t have to deal with-“

Whatever he was saying is overrun by yet another eager patient, this one swinging around to face him with a beaming grin. “Aw, man, did you call the right people! These guys are the best; they’ll have you set up in no time-“

_“What have I told you all about scaring off new patients?!”_

Maes’ small, hesitantly emboldened smile instantly freezes, and the strength of will he'd been trying to find crashes straight back down.

“Quit crowding him! You can harass him _after_ he’s got metal in- hey, Mark, are you _poking_ his surgical site?! That’s recent; you could hurt him! Leave him alone!”

As instantly as if it had been their own mother chastising them, the crowd backed off, all suddenly mumbling and cowering behind him- leaving him alone to face the intruder.

His heart stops.

“How many times have I told you all about this?!” the mechanic shouts, raising a torque wrench into the air as if in preparation to throw it. “Just because _you’re_ all a bunch of rowdy, insane men doesn’t mean every patient that steps through my door wants to join your craziness! Leave him be!”

“Y-y-yes, Miss Rockbell...”

And, with a satisfied huff, Winry Rockbell lowers her wrench and folded her arms, eyes still flashing dangerously- and then suddenly her smile is as sweet as kittens, and she turns back to face him, all hostility gone. “Mr. Wilson, was it?” she asks, holding out her hand for him to shake- her left, he realized, given without any hesitation or even a glance towards his empty shoulder. “I’m Winry Rockbell. I’ll be your mechanic.”

And Maes finds himself too stunned to even move.

Several seconds pass. He's still unable to do anything but gape at her.

Slowly, Winry frowns a little, eyes coloring with a hint of hesitation as she lowers her arm. “...I’m sorry, I know you were expecting Mr. Garfiel,” she starts, blinking at him. “But he’s all booked up today. I’m his assistant- but very qualified, I assure you. The idiots behind you can attest to that. Right, boys?”

Instantly, the men behind him clamor to agree, all shouting and waving metal limbs and ducking to get out of the way of the wrench that's probably soon to come- but Maes can barely hear them. The blood pounds in his ears, shock racing through his veins, and suddenly, he finds himself in dear need of sitting down before his ill, weakened body gives out on him completely and he just ups and passes out.

“...Sir?” Winry goes on uncertainly, watching him in obvious concern. Her smile is completely gone now, and she doesn't seem so sure of herself anymore as she looks at him closer, seeming to suspect his wordless, shocked stare is more than she'd first thought. “...I’m sorry- if you really wanted to be seen by Mr. Garfiel, then, you’ll have to wait a few days- but he’ll take you, if you really want the boss to handle your case. We understand getting automail isn’t easy to do and if you want a different mechanic, we’ll try to provide.”

And finally, as if it had just been waiting for a minute or two before it could kick back on again, Maes’ brain turned itself back on again.

She just doesn’t recognize him.

That’s what this is.

This is not some scheme set up to bring him face to face with one of the many,  _many_ people he's hiding from. There's no other force at work here except stupid coincidence; he'd needed an automail mechanic, he was in Rush Valley, Winry's an automail mechanic, she works in Rush Valley- as impossible as all of this, this truly is nothing more than a coincidence.

And she doesn't recognize him.

She honestly doesn’t know him. She thinks his hesitation, the fact that he’s just staring at her like some dumbstruck idiot, is because he’d been expecting someone else- she has absolutely no idea, not even an inkling, of who he really is.

He supposes, even if he still wasn’t too shocked to feel anything else, he has no right to be disappointed. Maes can barely recognize himself anymore, most days. He doesn’t think even Gracia or Roy would manage it; certainly not just by a passing glance. Winry Rockbell doesn’t stand a chance.

Besides, Winry thinks he’s dead.

And with that, Maes knows what he has to do.

What he has to do now is turn his back on this improbable, impossible, unbelievable, _life-threatening_ coincidence- because it _is_ life-threatening, and that’s all that matters. He needs to throw a nonvocal fit, and demand as rudely, insistently as possible that he be given to Garfiel. He should find some way toyell and whine like a spoiled child, shout that he doesn’t want a young girl as his mechanic, complain that he wants the _boss,_ not an inexperienced child, a _girl,_  and do anything else he can to make Winry Rockbell never want to deal with him again. Or, to be even safer, what he really should do is shake his head, inform her there had been some sort of mistake, turn around, walk out, and never even come to this part of the hospital, or Garfiel’s shop, again.

That’s what he should do, because in no way, shape, or form, is standing here and letting Winry Rockbell become his mechanic _anything_ but inexcusably, life-threateningly, stupidly dangerous.

So, just why, exactly, he doesn’t, Maes does not know.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, as if he’s been possessed and it’s something else controlling him, his mind still blank and his heart still racing in cold, startled terror, he watches as he holds his left hand back out for her to shake- and gives his first sincere smile since waking up down here in Rush Valley.

 

* * *

Winry, thank god, takes him out of that stifling first room and away from the other amputees and patients trying to manhandle him, leading him towards a separate patient room. He’s still in shock at all of this and just stumbles silently after her, mind rather unhelpfully blank and body almost dangerously limp. He rethinks his decision not a moment after the door closes. What is he doing? What is he _thinking?_ Sure, it honestly is a coincidence, it’s not likely the homunculi could find him through this- but what the hell is the point of taking a risk like this? And he's not just taking the risk, either; _he’_ s not the only one in danger here, if the homunculi track him through her then _Winry_ could be in danger, too. Keeping everyone else safe is the whole point of him hiding down here like this! He needs to back off- needs to invent some excuse and get out of here and never see her again-

 

“I apologize for the men out there,” she tells him cheerfully, pen stuck behind her ear and fingers somehow already prodding expertly at his shoulder. “If you haven’t noticed, being in Rush Valley, having automail tends to make people group together in a community. It’s unique; the way it lets you just look at someone and know they’ve gone through something so horrible.” She flashes him a quick smile, bright and welcoming. “They see it like a rite of passage around here. Makes a boy into a man, you know. Shirt off, please.”

Maes, still too numb and shocked to really speak- not that he could’ve otherwise- does nothing but gape at her.

There is something extremely disquieting about sitting here right across from someone he knows- and having her look and talk at him like he’s nothing more than a complete stranger.

There is also something, however, intensely relieving about being with someone familiar, whether she knows it or not, after so many weeks down here of being so completely alone. And it’s just relieving enough to keep Maes from doing the safe, smart thing of getting out of here as fast as possible.

Maybe it’s stupid- it probably is- but after everything...

God, he really doesn’t have it in him to turn tail and run now.

“...Sir?”

Maes starts, realizing that, once again, Winry is staring. He finds himself nodding quickly, jumping to wrestle at the sleeve of his shirt with numb fingers and relieved for the excuse to break her gaze, heart still pounding. When he manages to bare the wound he finds himself still finding every excuse he can to look away, swallowing hard and shivering through intermittent waves of nauseating, unreasonable fear. He fidgets again, still staring down, and it takes every ounce of his willpower to keep from flinching when Winry at last reaches for her wrench again.

He shouldn’t be here. He really, _really_ shouldn’t be here. This is too dangerous. If Maria or Alex saw this- when they find out what he’s done-

...

And Maes still couldn’t make himself move.

The girl works in the silence, alternately focusing on her job and slipping him worried, confused glances whenever she can. Winry seems to feel the awkward, discomforting quiet growing in the room just as much as he does- and somehow, she also seems to realize it’s not just because he can’t talk. It seems as if she’s using to letting her patient lead these sessions; he knows she’s not naturally so talkative, but she probably guesses he’s just nervous about getting automail and is trying to reassure him; fill the uneasy silence with chatter and warm words to put him at ease. “I know you’re apprehensive now,” she starts quietly, and he again grits his teeth, clutching his fist tight at the touch of cold steel to his skin. “But trust me: you’ll love it. I can get you may not be that into the idea now, but automail really is amazing, and calling us the first time is the hardest step. Some days I think I wouldn’t even mind losing an arm or two,” she laughs, winking at him, then goes back to her work.

Maes just smiles weakly, too overwhelmed to even think of attempting to write a reply back. 

He really needs to leave, but he’s still not moving.

Winry gives him warm look before returning her focus to his shoulder, pen back in hand. “How did this happen, if you don’t mind me asking? I can see it was amputated surgically- but what was the reason for it?”

He shifts uncomfortablyagain, watching as the mechanic poked and prodded at the stump. It hurts a little, yes, but the pain is nothing next to how unfathomably _weird_ it is to look at his shoulder and just- _not_ see an arm though. Some part of him thinks automail will make it even worse. _Knife fight,_ he writes distractedly at last, the half-truth coming very easily even while the lie somehow still tastes bitter. _With a woman, if you can believe it._ Lust had sliced down to his artery in the records room, her goal of his heart being missed by mere inches but her end of his death being achieved all the same. By the time Maria and Alex had gotten him to a doctor, the limb had gone without blood for so long it was dead; as dead as his name and the unclaimed John Doe lying in his grave back home. All there’d been for it was to cut it off.

Winry raises an eyebrow in surprise as she reads the note, looking vaguely amused. “A woman?” she asks with a hint of amusement, raising mischievous eyes up to him. “Oh, Mr. Wilson... don’t tell me she’s a spurned ex-girlfriend. I’ll be torn between telling you sorry, some women can be so cruel, and murdering you myself if it was justified!”

He smiles weakly again. She really is as brutal of a mechanic as all the stories he's heard.

It’s only then, with one big, startling jolt, that he realizes he’d just told her the truth of how he’d lost his arm.

Maes gapes silently downwards, heart pounding even harder, and it takes a surprisingly strong effort of willpower alone to not just bolt to his feet and bail right then and there.

What had he just done? _Why_? No one can know that! It’s one thing for him to connect with Winry by complete coincidence; it’s another for him to tell her how he’d lost his right arm! He’s not sure how common that knowledge is but Roy and Gracia at least know he was stabbed there; he can’t go around just _telling_ people that- hell, how is he supposed to explain it if Winry ever asks his doctor and finds out the lie he was told? What the hell was _wrong_ with him; how could he be so careless?!

Except, he already knows the answer to that.

He hadn’t even been thinking at all. Sitting here like this, listening to Winry talk- it’s the most at home he’s felt ever since being ripped away from Central. Maria looks at him now like she feels sorry for him whenever they meet, and the one time he’d seen Alex, his subordinate had been nothing like the soldier he knew so well. The only two people he has down here don't look at him like he’s _Maes,_ anymore; everything’s so different and off it’s more painful than it is familiar.

But sitting here with Winry is exactly that: familiar.

Familiar enough that he’d let his guard down, and simply hadn’t thought as he’d put pen to paper, and told her the truth.

That’s it, now. Maes knows he’d been too optimistic and careless in the first place, letting himself sit here with Winry at all like this wasn't risky, but it’s too dangerous now. Even he can’t deny it. If he can’t keep himself together for a single conversation then he just needs to get up and leave, and _now._ It’s safest and for the best, and he has no choice.

Maes tenses his hand, preparing to push himself up off the exam table. His mind, again, is blank of any excuse or reason to give- is blank of everything except the necessity of the fact that he needs to _leave._ Cold, nauseating anxiety races through him, twisting his stomach into knots; he’s already shaking again, but that doesn’t matter, all he has to do is get out of here and it’ll be safe-

And once again, as if she was sensing that he was about to run for it, Winry gives him another kind smile, and speaks again. You know,” she tells him steadily, “my brother has automail, too. Arm and a leg. He was my first patient ever.”

His heart aches again, but this time, it’s an addictive sort of pain. It hurts, but it hurts in a way that he just wants _more._

Just like when it rains outside, just like Gracia’s perfume, just like Maria’s coffee- it hurts, because it reminds him of home.

And he wants more.

She’s telling him more about herself to try and put him at ease, he realizes, understanding it with a guilty pang. Thinking he was still just nervous about getting automail and trying to calm him down or distract him.

She has no way of knowing she’s doing just the opposite- but no way of knowing how much he still wants for it.

This doesn’t change anything. It can’t. He needs to leave, and right now. The fact that she’s talking about Ed, and this is the closest to home he’s been in months, doesn’t matter. He needs to _leave._

But no matter how well he knows that, too much of him just wants to stay.

 _Your brother?_ he finally writes back.

He’ll leave in a minute. He nods slowly to himself, trying to reassure the anxious, terrified instincts to run with that knowledge alone. He'll be gone soon. He'll leave right away- just, after he's taken a little bit more of what Winry is offering. He won’t stay, and he won’t let himself see her again, of course, but-...

God, just give him a few minutes of home.

“Well, my best friend,” Winry amends with another grin after reading the paper, still poking at his shoulder. It’s alternately painful and numb. “I grew up with him, though. My whole childhood, we lived right next to each other. Then one day he just turns up needing two automail limbs. I... I won’t say he’s the same person he was before, because he’s not, or that he’s completely okay with it... but I know he doesn’t regret getting them.” She smiles at him again, clearly trying to convince and persuade, and it’s all Maes can do to keep his face blank.

Ed and Al. As if those two boys haven’t already lost enough in their lives- and he’s added another one to the list.

He sighs again.

It’s to keep them all safe, he reminds himself. No matter how much it hurts, either them or himself, this is to keep them all safe.

 _Do you still see him much?_ he writes back carefully, when he’s able to keep his hand steady again; just something to keep her talking even though he already knows the answer. He only realizes as he scratches the pen down the notepad again that this is one of the first time he’s ever willingly written something like this. Not something that he _has_ to say, like the homunculi with Maria or the answers to his doctors, but... just something that he wants to. Normally, it’s just hard and pitiful and takes so much time he can’t bring himself to do it- but suddenly, it’s worth it. It almost feels strange, now, after so long of being silent to actually have someone caring what he has to say, but strange in a way he thinks he's actually likes. It’s just to keep her talking. Just to keep _himself_ talking, for the first time- talking, and not thinking that this is too dangerous for him to entertain any longer- but at the same time, he's talking in a way he hasn't been able to since being shot, and he hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until just now.

Winry hesitates again, seeming unsure of how much to tell a complete stranger like him. Which is another part about this that just feels heartrenchingly _wrong,_ that she honestly thinks he’s a complete stranger, and some part of him is still terrified that any second now she’ll look back at him and realize- but, after a few seconds of standing there, tense and stiff, her gaze downcast, she just softens with a nod, lying down her own walls in what she must think is simply an attempt to help a patient feel more at ease. He'd feel more guilty for the deception if he wasn't deceiving anyone and everyone in his life.

“Not as much as I would like, no,” she admits. She focuses on his arm again, not holding his gaze this time in what seems to be a way to get a little distance, even as she tells such an intensely personal thing like this to a stranger like him. “He comes back to me every time he needs maintenance, of course... unrepentant little brat, never even apologizes for ruining my work...” She sighs, jotting down a couple of measurements again, and her face slowly starts to relax into warm fondness. “It’s complicated, though. He’s got a very important job that keeps him moving around a lot- I think he would come home more often if he could. I... well... I think. I really don’t know... he’s... he’s got a lot of complicated feelings about that,” she murmurs finally, glancing away. “Home means a lot of things to him besides me. It’s not easy for him to come back there.”

Maes nods slightly, understanding far more than she could possibly know. He’s not sure when he’d realized the signs for what they were, recognizing Ed as someone who felt he didn’t have a home to come back to, just that when he had, he’d tried his very hardest to get those two brothers to at least have _somewhere_ in the world where they feel welcome.

Until now, he’d never understood just how acutely lonely and isolating that felt- to not have a home he could return to.

Until now, there’s been nothing of his home in Rush Valley at all.

Maes still knows that this is too dangerous. He still knows he _needs_ to leave. If he can stand moving away from his wife and child, if he can stand keeping his best friend in the dark, then he is most definitely strong enough to stand up, walk out, and never let himself go near Winry Rockbell again. It’s too dangerous, and god knows it’s more than she deserves, to be put at risk like this just because he is selfish.

He also realizes, staring down as Winry works diligently over measuring his arm out and sick at heart, that this is not going to be the last time he sees her, because he misses his home too much to keep her away.

It’s selfish, but after weeks and weeks of having nothing at all, he’s too weak to be selfless anymore.

* * *

When the appointment ends, Maes is all too willing to schedule the follow-up for next week.

Though he knows she expects him to do it, he doesn't request Garfiel.

And then, when Winry waves him out the door, promising that she'll see him on Monday, he's selfish, and can't stop himself from giving her a wave and a smile back. 

 


End file.
